A Good Home

The truck arrived at 11:30, and the Volkswagen was winched up onto the flatbed.

Carlos said he would take a few months to fix it up. He will bring the car by when he was finished. Carlos intends to commute in the VW from San Mateo to his job in Redwood City. He was the only buyer among three who promised not to flip the car immediately for a profit.

A car is not the same as a beloved pet, much less a human child, but it's nice to know the car that I've had for 51 years is going to a good home.

Sandwiches on 123123

Today, New Year's Eve, 123123, is an "angel number":

If you take a closer look at the date, written as 12/31/23 or even 123123, you might see an angel number, which are repeating number sequences, often used as a guide for deeper spiritual exploration. The numerical sequences can range anywhere from 000 to 999, with each number having a distinct meaning and energy, USA Today previously reported.

The once-in-a-century date, which won’t be seen again on our calendars until Dec. 31, 2123, marks a new beginning. One, that asks us to “transform and evolve with the times and in the right place to embrace what is coming to us,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac website.

Daniel, Solita, Janis, Valerie, David

Your humble blogger doesn't believe in numerology (although he has been known to mark particular numbers on a Lotto card), but having read Billy Graham's book long ago, I am inclined to believe in angels.

New Year's weekend was a time to spend a few moments being less hedonistic and more angelic. Six of us met at the church Saturday to make 80 brown-bag lunches for whoever showed up at the Fair Oaks Community Center on Sunday. With six experienced assemblers the work was done in a little over an hour.

The activity leaves a mark on the next generation,
or so they tell me years later.

After storing the lunches in refrigerators overnight, we took them to the community center at noon. Although the "crowd" was about half its normal size, all the bags were quickly snapped up by the patrons, some getting as many as three.

Within 20 minutes all the work was done. We wished everyone Happy New Year (Feliz Año Nuevo) and waltzed away on 1-2-3-1-2-3.

Speaking of waltzing...

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Sliver of Good News

My cart was filled like every other one.

On Friday the Costco parking lot was jammed with cars looking for a parking space. Usually I leave immediately and wait for a more opportune time, like one hour before closing. However these purchases had to be made today, as we were making brown-bag lunches on Saturday for Sunday's distribution in Redwood City.

It took 15 minutes to get a distant parking space, then another hour to buy all the ingredients on the list. It didn't help that there were shopping carts going in all directions, carts stopping at the sampler tables, and little kids running with abandon. It's a wonder that I've never seen someone hurt.

Hoping to impress the cashier, I estimated the total out loud would be $325. It turned out to be $308.

That's one sliver of good news, i.e., food prices have abated slightly. Happy New Year (almost)!

The Last Summons

Waiting room, 2017: won't get fooled again.

Three months ago I received a summons for jury duty. Unable to attend because of our Hawaii trip, I rescheduled the appearance to August 1st. A pre-recorded message on the night before said that my group, 1003, was excused and won't be summoned again for at least 12 months. Meanwhile, questions.

Is there an age ceiling for jury duty? Being too old is not among the list of San Mateo County's disqualifications.

A slightly different slant: is being too old a sufficient excuse for not serving? No. [bold added]

YOU MAY REQUEST TO BE EXCUSED IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO SERVE AS A JUROR BECAUSE...You are 70 years of age or older and have a medical condition. We excuse ONLY for the medical condition, not for age. There is NO age exemption in CA. This is not a permanent excusal.

Elsewhere the SM County website states that a medical excuse for a potential juror must have "a supporting letter, memo, or note from a treating health care provider."

One would have to be a very careful reader of government-ese to wonder why the "70 years of age or older" medical passage was written, if oldsters had to get a doctor's permission slip like everyone else.

The Orange County website explains the mystery: [bold added]

There is no age exemption for jury service. If you are 70 years of age or older, the California Rules of Court allow you to be excused due to a medical condition without a doctor’s note. You must inform the court that you are not able to serve.

San Mateo County is being highly misleading, if not dishonest, by not clearly stating that a 70+-year-old does not need a doctor's note. I vote, answer summonses, pay parking tickets and taxes, trying to adhere to both the letter and spirit of the law. No longer: I am not inclined to help them out because of this dishonesty.

My lumbago is getting worse, and it attacks suddenly without notice....

Sandwiches on Saturday and Sunday

The six volunteers--Janis, Elliott, Daniel, Valerie, Mary and Elliott Jr. (the latter two not in the picture)--gathered at the Parish Hall on Saturday to assemble the sandwiches and drop them in the brown bags.

It took 90 minutes from start to clean-up, a little longer than usual. Janis advised us that we were not slathering on enough peanut butter and jelly.

Previously we had been making the layers too thin; in other words we were too skimpy on the Skippy, and now we had a real PB&J.

I took the 80 brown bags to the Fair Oaks Community Center on Sunday. About 40 people were in line. They were happy that more diners had not showed up because each was now able to receive two bags and two bottles of water.

Deborah Orler from Hearts for Humanity drove up in her van and passed out more bags to the clientele. She then sped off to other food-distribution centers on the Peninsula.

Within half an hour everything was given away, and I packed up the empty containers. Setting aside a portion for tomorrow is normally a virtue, but not for Sandwiches on Sunday.

Healthy Slough

The winter rains have revived the Belmont Slough, which marks the border between Foster City and Redwood Shores. We've had clear weather since May 1st (left).

Although the water level had fallen slightly when I took the picture (right) earlier today, the supply of brackish water will be ample this summer, the Slough will be healthy, and we'll likely get even more waterfowl.

Wikipedia: "In the early 1900s the slough was considered the best place to hunt ducks in San Mateo County, with the birds so plentiful, hunters could sneak up on them." Duck-hunting won't return any time soon, but sentiments can change.

Sandwiches on Children's Day

Every 5-6 years Children's Day falls on April 30th. The community center's parking lot is filled with booths and activities, and we have to hold Sandwiches on Sunday at the back entrance.

Antonio from the community center directed our regular customers to the temporary location. We passed out lunches to a number of new faces--festival-goers who heard that there was free food out back--and within 20 minutes all 80 bags and bottles of water were distributed.

The volunteers took a few minutes to check out the Children's Day festivities. It seemed more subdued than previous years, with less music, dancing, costumes, and food.

The funk that everyone seems to be in for the past three years still lingers.

Making Sandwiches and Biting One's Tongue

On Saturday I got to the church an hour early to set up the assembly line. The sandwich ingredients were laid out next to the plastic baggies, and the brown paper bags were pre-filled with fruit, napkins, and trail mix packages.

The four people who showed up offered suggestions about how to prepare sandwiches more efficiently. The foreman (yours truly) accepted all their suggestions because it's important to keep workers happy, especially if all parties know the laborers are severely underpaid.

We finished the eighty (80) bags in 2½ hours, a half an hour longer than normal, but the foreman bit his tongue about the purported efficiency improvements. He wants the workers to come back next time.

Sandwich-Making Improvements: Assembling

On Saturday morning Daniel and I got there a few minutes early and laid out the ingredients and supplies on two tables.

Valerie, David, and Cathy arrived and started cranking out the sandwiches; each bag would get one ham-and-cheese and one PB&J.

My job was final assembly, i.e., putting napkins, trail mix, fruit, and the sandwiches in a brown bag.

Working as fast as I could, I nevertheless fell behind. Two years ago the final assembler twiddled his thumbs waiting for the sandwiches to be prepared and bagged.

Ninety minutes later we were completely done--the sandwiches put away, the tables wiped clean, and the supplies put back in the closet.

On Sunday we will take the lunches to the Redwood City community center at noon, after which we will catch the championship games that will determine the teams who will go to the Super Bowl. Sundays don't get much better than that.

Sandwich-Making Improvements: Purchasing

Before making the brown bag lunches for the community center one has to buy the ingredients. Your humble blogger/purchasing agent often made mistakes when Outreach volunteers started making sandwiches two years ago (we served hot lunches cafeteria-style for 18 years before 2020) and had to run back to the market several times when we neglected to purchase various items.

It now takes an hour to blitz through the aisles and throw everything into one cart (picture). The Costco cashier was impressed when I specified nine bags of apples, 24 loaves of bread, and four packages each of ham, turkey, and cheese, plus assorted condiments and supplies. He asked if I had a sandwich business or if I was hosting a picnic.

No, we're making sandwiches for the homeless.

"How often do you do this?"

Four times a year, and the church has been doing it for a couple of years. The total should be a little over $300. Both the cashier and the bagger were impressed when the bill turned out to be $330.

Dr. Deming would have smiled approvingly at our sandwich-making improvements.

Copacetic Sandwiches on Sunday

The final Sandwiches on Sunday for this year--other churches will handle November and December--was copacetic.

Costco had every item on the checklist, and the shopping cart was filled in one trip.

On Saturday five volunteers showed up early, and we were able to assemble 80 bag lunches, each containing two sandwiches, one apple, trailmix, and candy (it's Halloween tomorrow), in an hour.

Two refrigerators were able to store everything overnight.

Only one volunteer was needed to deliver the food and water to the community center in Redwood City.

It took half an hour to distribute all of it, allowing plenty of time to get home to watch the 49ers thump the Rams, 31-14. It was a beautiful day.

True Colors

Giselle Hale (Chron photo)

Giselle Hale is dropping out of the race for Assemblyman due to vicious attack ads that have distressed her young family. No, the attacks are not coming from Republicans but from the campaign of Diane Papan, her only opponent and a fellow Democrat.

Hale, the mayor of Redwood City and a progressive Democrat, shocked California political observers with the decision. In June, Hale just narrowly secured the second spot on the ballot to run for the 21st District Assembly seat in the Nov. 8 election.

Her race against Diane Papan, deputy mayor of San Mateo, was expected to be one of the most contentious Democrat-on-Democrat contests for the Legislature this fall. Now, Papan is all but guaranteed to be the next Assembly member to represent the district, which includes San Mateo County and several affluent Silicon Valley suburbs south of San Francisco.

Diane Papan

Papan finished first in the June primary, with 41% of the vote. Hale narrowly edged out Republican Mark Gilham for second place, with 19.8% of the vote, compared with 19.5% for Gilham...

Hale said she faced the “full force” of a roughly $1.2 million negative ad campaign, including mailers that showed up in her mailbox almost daily. One ad criticized her for auditioning for “The Apprentice,” former President Donald Trump’s old reality TV show. Another criticized her for being registered as a “no party preference” voter in the past.

In a state where the Democratic Party holds all state-wide offices and both houses in the legislature the voters must often choose between two Democrats in the November finals, the consequence of the Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act. For example, in 2016 Kamala Harris (D) defeated Loretta Sanchez (D) when Barbara Boxer retired from the U.S. Senate.

Both Diane Papan and Giselle Hale are white, middle-aged liberal women who are the mayor or deputy mayor of cities in San Mateo County. One might well have thought that their personal and political similarities might have lessened the polarization we see almost everywhere else and resulted in a respectful, even muted campaign.

Sorry to disappoint. When power, wealth, and privilege are at stake, true colors often emerge.

Sandwiches on Sunday

There were about a dozen people when I got to the community center at 11:30. It's Memorial Day weekend, I surmised, even the hungry have better places to be.

The assessment was premature; when the three volunteers arrived a few minutes later, the line had grown to 30. We gave two bags to each person and judged that there would be enough left over for stragglers.

Deborah Orler

At noon a van pulled up with four adults. Good, we had enough to feed them, too.

No thank you, said the leader of the group, we are here to help. Deborah said that she had started a non-profit group called Hearts for Humanity. Its purpose is to distribute food, clothing, and toiletries to veterans, seniors, and the homeless on the Peninsula. She brought out two boxes of pastries and more bag lunches from the van. They were gladly received by our "customers" at the community center.

I recounted a brief history of Sandwiches on Sunday to Deborah. She was interested in participating in some fashion. We promised we'd keep in touch.

Meanwhile, some of the meal recipients began feeding the pastries to birds. Within a minute about several dozen pigeons swooped down. After they were done, they perched on the roof, eyes raking the area for more.

Next time I'll bring a hat.

Not Gone Away

Valerie spreads the mustard.

Rob brought over all the ingredients on Friday. I checked the inventory against the bill of materials (manufacturing jargon!), picked up a couple of items, and went to the parish hall on Saturday morning to set up the assembly line.

COVID cases are spiking again. Because the church membership has a substantial number of people who are over 65 and have co-morbidities, e.g., diabetes, obesity, asthma, I opened the doors and set out gloves and spare masks.

Even if individuals are themselves low risk, they are very likely to have people in their own household who are in the vulnerable population.

Only three volunteers showed up because of the long Memorial Day weekend, but we still managed to put together 90 bag lunches in the scheduled two hours.

The extra supplies were put in the storage closet, and the lunches were squeezed overnight into two refrigerators.

Sandwiches on Sunday has returned to its roots; we're making sandwiches again. The coronavirus has forced the closure of the community garden and the cessation of hot cafeteria-style lunches.

But the need for a free meal has not gone away.

Sunday Service

At least the picture is clever

Attending early-morning church service is a tradition in many households during football season.

There were games to watch in the afternoon, but before that pleasurable activity I had to take the brown-bag lunches to Redwood City.

That lunchtime errand unfortunately (😉) conflicted with the church's Annual General Meeting, where the congregation votes on various measures and candidates for office.

As an added bonus one gets to listen to reports of finances and various ministries.

I couldn't attend the meeting and picked up the 43 pages of materials. Reading is much more efficient than listening.

Pre-COVID we needed six servers for the hot lunch.
Now just one person is needed to deliver and set up.

I retrieved the lunches from the refrigerator and hauled them to the Redwood City community center.

There were 30 people in line, and a dozen stragglers showed up in the next half hour.

After a short waiting period, the customers were told they could have two bags, and all 87 were snapped up.

Duties done, it was time to engage in America's secular religion.

Well, the games were exciting and not decided until the very end. The Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams will face off in the Super Bowl in two weeks.

Saturday Assembly Line

The beginning of the third year of the pandemic saw us assembling brown-bag lunches again, instead of the hot meals we used to serve cafeteria-style in Redwood City. This time we only had four volunteers on a Saturday morning because of scheduling conflicts.

No worries, we had become much more efficient since we had begun making sandwiches fourteen months ago.

No more running back to the store to buy something we had forgotten, no more stuffing too-large bread into too-small sandwich bags.

Two hours later, 87 bag lunches were stuffed into an empty refrigerator.

We'll take them to the community center tomorrow. It will be nice to see old friends.

The Dollar-and-a-Quarter Store

After paying for the take-out lunch, I wandered into the Dollar Tree next door to while away the next 15 minutes. I hadn't been there for several years and was surprised to see that they finally breached the one-dollar price point. Dollar Tree had raised the price of everything to $1.25:

Dollar Tree Inc. is raising prices for good, the company announced on Tuesday, moving its price point higher by a quarter from the eponymous dollar...

The company said the higher price point is a permanent move, and not the result of “short-term or transitory market conditions.” Moreover, the $1.25 price point allows the company to offer a wider range of merchandise, including items that had been discontinued at the $1 level.

I picked up two packages of five 9x12 mailing envelopes. The total was $2.50 for 10, a bargain.

The shelves aren't chained or locked.

The checkout lines, with everyone masked and distanced, were busy. The customers chatted with the cashiers; they seemed like regulars.

I didn't notice any of the chained and locked shelves that are ubiquitous in San Francisco stores. The paucity of security measures probably was due to the Redwood City crime rate being lower and the low per-item value of goods for sale. It wouldn't be worth the time to steal a shelf of anything, then list it on eBay.

Though you are probably not in its demographic, dear reader, Dollar Tree's business model meets the needs of millions, and Dollar Tree is not saddled with the high marketing and security costs that plague upscale establishments. May it thrive another 35 years.

Meaningful Outreach

At the Redwood City laundromat: 3 members of our church
and Pamela Stevens (2nd from right) from the Diocese.

Those of us who have owned our own washing machine and dryer for decades may have forgotten, like I did, what a hassle it is to haul dirty clothes, laundry bags, detergent, and quarters ($8 for a large load!) to the laundromat, sit on hard plastic chairs, and wait for a machine to open up.

Early Saturday morning I went to the church office to pick up donations for the community served by El Buen Pastor, the Episcopal Church's Spanish-speaking congregation on the Peninsula.

Staff and parents of the pre-school and members of the church contributed laundry supplies, rolls of quarters, and children's books and toys to the effort. All told, we paid for 20 loads of laundry, and everything that was donated found its way to a proper home.

Meaningful outreach needs time and money, but a little empathy and imagination help, too.

Sandwiches on Sunday: Normal is Still Far, Far Away

Seven people gathered at the parish hall on Saturday to assemble 80 bag lunches. It would be their fourth and final Sandwiches on Sunday for the year. Volunteers had other things to do on Halloween, but on the bright side they didn't have to work on the last weekends of November (Thanksgiving) or December (between Christmas and New Year's Day).

We were finished in the record speed of an hour, because I've gotten better at taking inventory and didn't have to run to the supermarket.

On Sunday the sandwiches and the water were set out on the tables of the Redwood City community center. Within a half an hour everything was gone. Most of the 50 people served asked for an extra bag, and we were happy to accommodate them.

The next sandwich-making is January 30th. The last time we served hot lunches was December, 2019, and the community center director said she didn't know when COVID-19 safety protocols will be lifted.

We had been running low on bulk supplies like brown paper bags (500 count) and plastic sandwich bags (300 count) and had been delaying replenishment in case we went back to normal cafeteria-style meals, but it looks like normal is still far, far away.

Sandwiches on Sunday - Happy to Help

On Saturday the sandwich assembly line came indoors. The 92°F-degree heat on a breezeless day and the poor air quality from the wildfires were the deciding factors.

We were four vaccinated, symptomless individuals, and the risk of contracting the virus was slight compared to the certain misery of working outdoors.

Learning from our previous mistake, inventory was taken before the commencement of sandwich-making.

Again we had to buy more bread, but the shortage was remedied before the noon start-time.

In 90 minutes we assembled 90 brown bags, each containing two sandwiches, one trail mix, and one apple.

The brown bags were stored overnight in refrigerators at the church and a parishioner's home.

There were 40 people in line at the Redwood City community center.

Garbage bags were the easiest method of transport.
The recipients don't care about appearances.

Some were so hungry they began devouring the sandwiches as soon as they got them.

Many asked for an extra bag or two for a spouse, kid, or a friend. There were sufficient supplies to satisfy the request immediately instead of waiting to make sure everyone got at least one bag.

After half an hour every potential "customer" had left. Antonio, the county worker who assists us on Sundays, said that no one bothers to show up after that, because everyone assumes that the lunches have been completely distributed.

I took the five remaining bags to the Catholic Worker House. There were three people waiting on the porch hoping that someone would come by with food. I was happy to help.